Posts tagged Facebook

Facebook’s privacy settings aren’t working

Hmmm. I’ve been playing around with the Facebook privacy settings. In short, they’re broken. (This isn’t an observation about whether they’re appropriate or good, it is purely about functionality.)

I use various apps that are connected to Facebook which post on my behalf. For example, I take photos on the Camera+ app on my iPhone and that app can then post photos to my albums and wall.

Anyway, I went to the app settings and set most of them to post to friends only and a couple to post publicly. But here’s the problem: they don’t do what you tell them to. My Camera+ app is set to post to friends only, but it has been posting publicly.

It seems that the apps don’t operate independently of the master privacy setting. So, if the master setting is to post to public by default (which I’m sure I’ve switched to friends only at least two times now…hmmm), then that overrides the individual settings on the apps.

So it appears that there is no customisation working at the moment. Which is feeble. Let’s hope they fix this soon.

I tried it the other way around too. I set my master setting to friends only (again) and then posted a link via the Reeder app on my iPhone which I set up to post publicly. The result? It only posted to friends.

Rubbish. I’m sorry Facebook, but in matters of privacy, you just can’t have bugs like this.

The new Facebook design feels even more cluttered

Facebook are in the process of rolling out another new redesign to its site. My first thought is that it feels very cluttered.

My eyes are being drawn to too many places at the same time. Should I look at the new ‘ticker’, the ‘recent stories’, the ‘from earlier today’ posts, the ‘people to subscribe to’ suggestions, the sponsored links, the birthday and events notifications, or the list of people online?

It feels like too much.

On a related note, I also still think that the font size is too small for the core Facebook text.

I actually think that Google+ has got a much better design than Facebook. The layout and font sizing is much more pleasing on the eye and doesn’t have the same clutter issues that Facebook is struggling with.

It seems that Facebook are copying a lot of Google+ features, maybe someone could suggest they start copying some of the look and feel too.

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Quick Review - If This Then That (IFTTT)

I like the look of this new site called If This Then That (IFTTT). In theory it is everything I’m looking for. I have blog posts and links that I like to share across various different platforms ranging from Google+ to Facebook to Twitter. And so this seems ideal. Sadly though, it still doesn’t do enough for me.

I said in theory above because, in reality, I’m very pernickety when it comes to social sharing. I want everything to look just right for the platform that I’m sharing on. And that typically requires a level of customisation that simply isn’t available with IFTTT or any of the cross platform social sharing tools.

So, after spending a bit of time playing around with it, I’m going to stick to manually posting all the content I want to share on each of the different platforms I engage with.

For others, I can imagine this being a really useful tool so I do definitely recommend giving it a try. It could definitely save you some time.

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Two weeks on: my thoughts on Google+

I’ve been using Google+ for about two weeks now and have now formed few more established thoughts about it.

Those of you who know me or have added me to your circles will know that I have been very positive about it. I like it, I really do. I think it brings together the best of the worlds of both Twitter and Facebook: I can share privately to family and friends, but I can also share publicly to anyone who chooses to follow me (and anything else in between depending on the circles I create and share with).

So I do genuinely feel that Google+ has a real shot at success as a major player in the social networking scene. I don’t expect it to wipe out Twitter or Facebook any time soon - but I do think it will make some serious inroads.

That said, I still think that a lot of people will struggle to see a compelling reason to transition to or even setup a Google+ profile. There are two types of people in the world: those who love meeting new people, and those who are happy with the friends and family they already have.

If you’re on Facebook happily sharing with your established family and friends, why would you move to Google+ to do the same thing (in a slightly different way) with the very same people?

This is why - initially at least - I think it will be people from Twitter who transition to Google+ much more naturally than your average, non Twitter using Facebook user.

People on Twitter are used to meeting new people and following people they don’t know. Facebook users only connect with people they know. And there will be a lot of Facebook users trying out Google+, seeing hardly anyone they know there (yet), and not knowing what to do. That is a big hurdle that Google+ has to overcome.

I do think the future is bright for Google+, and it is already taking off faster than any other social network in history. But for people who are only interested in connecting with people they already know, the barriers to entry are very high.

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